This week was mostly pretty quiet with my being sick and all, but now I'm better and things are getting back to normal. I have my first exam on Friday, and already I'm tired of studying for it. Not that I've been really studying for it. We have had 36 lectures already, so I've spent most of my time catching up on those. And then I'll have to go back and review them all over again. Considering I have a week and it's all material I'm pretty familiar with, I'm not all that worried. . .I'm just annoyed at the amount of material.
Anyway, our college mentor had a party for us on Friday night. I didn't realize it was optional as there were a few people who didn't show up. They made it seem pretty mandatory. The first 20 minutes were pretty excruciatingly painful. Apparently, I'm a grown up now, so all conversations will consist of grown-up things or be about school. I don't think you could have counted the number of ways I imagined hurting people until they stopped talking. On the other hand, I also don't like talking about stupid things I equate with high school. It's kind of a fine line.
Unacceptable topics of conversation include: 1. Grey's Anatomy - just because I'm going to be a doctor doesn't mean I like this show, in fact I find it insufferable. Apparently women are now ok with being stereotyped as illogical, highly emotional twits. Thanks Grey's. 2. School - We're all there together 24/7, seeing and doing the same things, do we really need to keep talking about it? 3. Who's hot - There's a list of the hottest guys and girls in the class made by people who went through facebook and ranked everybody. . .this is fucking worse than high school.
Acceptable topics of conversation: 1. Anything that ends with a joke or set up for a joke. 2. Good TV, like The Office, which generally ends up with trading funny lines from the show. 3. Funny stories. . .Basically anything that's not particularly serious and ends up in much laughter wins with me.
The one cool thing about the party was that our mentor dude stopped an ice cream truck and bought us all ice cream. It was the greatest thing ever. I got the Spiderman ice cream bar. . .which turned out to be the most sugar-y, artificial color filled ice cream bar ever. About half way through the bar I started getting really jittery from all the sugar, so I stopped eating it. It was still pretty awesome though.
I'm literally not believing how soon I'm coming home. Since I'll be flying out right after my exam, I have to get trashed on the plane (life is so hard). My brother already filled me in on the proper way to do so, and one of the rare cool girls in my class is flying out with me. So this should be fun.
Saturday, September 29, 2007
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
My hot pot and me
I'm sick. I blame it on the fact that for the past two nights, my body decided I shouldn't sleep well. I woke up roughly each hour wondering "Why? With the tossing and the turning? Mother of god whyyy??" And then there is the fact that I was eating two meals a day because I've been busy and stuff. I still blame my body. I went to Walgreens and picked up a hot pot, tea and cough drops. For some stupid reason I forgot tylenol. By the time I realized that I'm a giant idiot, I was in bed and not getting up again. So yeah, go me. I'm going to be a doctor.
Anyway, I'm taking my first exam next week (thankfully the material this week's been easy, so I'm not that far behind), and then I'M COMING HOME!! So fucking excited sweet baby jesus i'm coming back to California! I miss California. I sometimes forget I'm not there anymore. Stupid moving.
Yup, that's about all I've got right now. Hopefully this stupid cold goes away soon and I'll be able to take a breath without wanting to rip off my nose.
Anyway, I'm taking my first exam next week (thankfully the material this week's been easy, so I'm not that far behind), and then I'M COMING HOME!! So fucking excited sweet baby jesus i'm coming back to California! I miss California. I sometimes forget I'm not there anymore. Stupid moving.
Yup, that's about all I've got right now. Hopefully this stupid cold goes away soon and I'll be able to take a breath without wanting to rip off my nose.
Sunday, September 23, 2007
Friday, September 21, 2007
I need a life. . .no, really
This blog has turned into a massive med school journal. I wish I could change that, but considering I have no life, there's really nothing else for me to write about. So I'll at least try to keep it interesting for you all. Or else one of you could lend me your life for a bit. I'll return it. . .maybe.
I did shadow a surgeon in the operating room today. It was wicked awesome. First of all, I got to wear full on surgical scrubs. I should have taken a camera because I was so fucking excited about that part. I wore the mouth mask thingy and everything! God, that right there fulfilled so many fantasies.
The patient lady had an electrode inserted along her spine about a month ago with a battery pack implanted down her lower back. She had swelling around both the battery pack and the electrode, so the surgeon went in to determine whether there was some sort of immune fluid build up (think like liquid pus stuff) or a leak of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) from a tear in the spinal cord covering (very clear brain bath liquid). It actually took about an hour just to prep the patient by positioning her correctly and getting the anesthesia set up (anesthesiologists have a pretty boring job in my opinion, they just sit there after they get the person down). They then isolated the area that would be worked on by placing a crap load of different towels (not really towels, but I can't think of the word) on the person. Eventually you couldn't even see the person except for the area that was going to be cut.
Anyway, now to the juicy stuff (hehe). So there was a lot of swelling because of the build up of fluid. With swelling like that, there's a lot of pressure built up as well. The surgeon made the incision in the skin and as soon as he got through the muscle layer, a bunch of liquid spurted out of the wound. Now, I was afraid I wouldn't be able to handle the cutting and spurting and whatnot, but apparently all my years of watching tv have desensitized me completely. Yay for not having feelings! Watching the surgery was pretty neat. It turns out there was a rip in the covering of the spinal cord, so they had to go in and do spine surgery.
The spinal cord is held in that hole/white space, so the surgeon shaved off the spinous process to get to it (yay for drilling bones away). I kinda assume you need an intact spinal bones, but apparently not so much. Learning about all the abuse a human body can take is fun. After 4 hours of standing around on my part, the surgery was done and I got to leave. It was sad because my legs didn't want to walk home. I literally stumbled like 4-5 times. Standing's hard, yo.
Oh and fun surgical stereotype that's true: at the end of the surgery when they were sewing the patient up, the surgeon and staff started talking about nights they've gone out drinking too hard and general debauchery that ensued. It was pretty great.
I did shadow a surgeon in the operating room today. It was wicked awesome. First of all, I got to wear full on surgical scrubs. I should have taken a camera because I was so fucking excited about that part. I wore the mouth mask thingy and everything! God, that right there fulfilled so many fantasies.
The patient lady had an electrode inserted along her spine about a month ago with a battery pack implanted down her lower back. She had swelling around both the battery pack and the electrode, so the surgeon went in to determine whether there was some sort of immune fluid build up (think like liquid pus stuff) or a leak of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) from a tear in the spinal cord covering (very clear brain bath liquid). It actually took about an hour just to prep the patient by positioning her correctly and getting the anesthesia set up (anesthesiologists have a pretty boring job in my opinion, they just sit there after they get the person down). They then isolated the area that would be worked on by placing a crap load of different towels (not really towels, but I can't think of the word) on the person. Eventually you couldn't even see the person except for the area that was going to be cut.
Anyway, now to the juicy stuff (hehe). So there was a lot of swelling because of the build up of fluid. With swelling like that, there's a lot of pressure built up as well. The surgeon made the incision in the skin and as soon as he got through the muscle layer, a bunch of liquid spurted out of the wound. Now, I was afraid I wouldn't be able to handle the cutting and spurting and whatnot, but apparently all my years of watching tv have desensitized me completely. Yay for not having feelings! Watching the surgery was pretty neat. It turns out there was a rip in the covering of the spinal cord, so they had to go in and do spine surgery.
The spinal cord is held in that hole/white space, so the surgeon shaved off the spinous process to get to it (yay for drilling bones away). I kinda assume you need an intact spinal bones, but apparently not so much. Learning about all the abuse a human body can take is fun. After 4 hours of standing around on my part, the surgery was done and I got to leave. It was sad because my legs didn't want to walk home. I literally stumbled like 4-5 times. Standing's hard, yo.
Oh and fun surgical stereotype that's true: at the end of the surgery when they were sewing the patient up, the surgeon and staff started talking about nights they've gone out drinking too hard and general debauchery that ensued. It was pretty great.
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
I'm always sleepy
Nothing's really been going on this week. I had a pretty uneventful weekend where I studied and ran errands. I saw Across the Universe. .. and I don't know how I feel about it. There were some really very pretty and exciting images, and I probably would have appreciated it more if I was more familiar with the Beatles. The story was put together weird but it was still pretty charming. Anyway, Julie Taymor still rocks as far as I'm concerned.
So I'm taking this optional class called Patient Perspectives, specifically the psych one, where we go and talk to patients for an hour each week and listen to their stories. It's supposed to help us learn how to talk to patients and understand what they're going through. I went in on Tuesday, and I was told that it would be a nice environment and there's nothing to worry about. I also like to think I'm pretty tough and can handle most things. But it's pretty One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest in there, which is not so ok. I went in with another classmate and asked the psychiatrist there to suggest a patient to talk to (so we don't end up with someone violent). We also asked for an interview room because that's what we were told to do, but he said no. My patient was actually really nice and quiet (which didn't help so much with the conversation part of it) and he had some pretty harmless paranoias. However, we were sitting in a common area, and one of the patients kept walking around our couches in circles muttering about how someone's going to die and then he'll follow. That wasn't cool. Nope, not one bit. The patient I was talking to looked pretty uncomfortable about it, so I basically ended the conversation (about 5-10 minutes after we started) and bolted the hell out of there. In retrospect, I probably should have told a doctor about that. . .but I think they'll figure it out.
Other than that, I'm not really handling the 8am classes all that great. It's helped a little bit since I got a mattress pad and I don't wake up in the middle of the night because my back is hurting. I think the problem, though, is that I can't take naps. I have never been able to take a 15 minute nap. My brain's just buzzing too much to fall asleep during the day. So last week, this constant tiredness just built up until Friday when I passed out hardcore and took a 3 hour nap. And I don't think that even qualifies as a nap at that point. So yeah, my body hates me. It's great.
Mm yeah, that's all for now.
So I'm taking this optional class called Patient Perspectives, specifically the psych one, where we go and talk to patients for an hour each week and listen to their stories. It's supposed to help us learn how to talk to patients and understand what they're going through. I went in on Tuesday, and I was told that it would be a nice environment and there's nothing to worry about. I also like to think I'm pretty tough and can handle most things. But it's pretty One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest in there, which is not so ok. I went in with another classmate and asked the psychiatrist there to suggest a patient to talk to (so we don't end up with someone violent). We also asked for an interview room because that's what we were told to do, but he said no. My patient was actually really nice and quiet (which didn't help so much with the conversation part of it) and he had some pretty harmless paranoias. However, we were sitting in a common area, and one of the patients kept walking around our couches in circles muttering about how someone's going to die and then he'll follow. That wasn't cool. Nope, not one bit. The patient I was talking to looked pretty uncomfortable about it, so I basically ended the conversation (about 5-10 minutes after we started) and bolted the hell out of there. In retrospect, I probably should have told a doctor about that. . .but I think they'll figure it out.
Other than that, I'm not really handling the 8am classes all that great. It's helped a little bit since I got a mattress pad and I don't wake up in the middle of the night because my back is hurting. I think the problem, though, is that I can't take naps. I have never been able to take a 15 minute nap. My brain's just buzzing too much to fall asleep during the day. So last week, this constant tiredness just built up until Friday when I passed out hardcore and took a 3 hour nap. And I don't think that even qualifies as a nap at that point. So yeah, my body hates me. It's great.
Mm yeah, that's all for now.
Friday, September 14, 2007
Brains, lovely brains
I totally just woke up from a 3 hour nap, and it was delicious. Three hour naps only happen when I'm exhausted by the way, and considering this week felt like a whole month I'm not really surprised.
Anyway, now that I'm relatively rested I can write about my neurosurg shadowing, which was really really cool. I got there in the middle of clinic hours, so the doctor was with a patient and I waited in the workroom. I never really thought about how these things worked, but the place looked like a normal doctor's office with multiple exam rooms and one of the rooms was a physician workroom. That's where I was. So the doctor walks in after about 10 minutes and immediately goes to one of the computers to look at a CD of scans. There was a 3rd year rotating student following the doctor as well. I kinda stood there awkwardly for a while, which is what I do well. Once the scans were up and working, the doctor told me to come look at the scans, and I seriously didn't stop thinking or learning for the next two hours.
That patient had a recurrent tumor growth right behind his temple. The tumor was a little larger than a quarter and was right next to his optic nerve. Scans from a couple years before showed that the tumor was not growing. We all went and the doctor talked to the patient about his options. The amazing thing for me was that the patient seemed completely normal. You'd think the tumor would affect something, but not so much. He was also incredibly nice and didn't really seem too phased by the whole thing, he just wanted to know what to do. Apparently, the thing to do in this case is not take out the tumor, but get scans done twice a year and only operate if the tumor begins to grow. Which is crazy talk. The man had a giant tumor in his head. I guess operating put his vision at too much risk, but I think it's amazing that someone can live perfectly fine with a brain tumor.
Then we went straight back to the workroom and prepared for the next patient. This patient had some sort of spinal damage with a fancy name I don't remember. The one symptom was a strong, painful spasticity due to a lack of inhibition of a motor reflex arc (simple and cool nerves, wiki it). So they could give the patient a pill that would increase inhibition and decrease the spasticity, but I guess this has a bunch of side effects. Instead they implanted a pump into the person's torso (above the hip, below the rib on the side) that delivered the drug directly to the damaged site, which only required 1/1000 of the original pill dosage. This patient needed to have the pump refilled with the drug. This was my first experience watching someone have something poked into them, in this case the needle that delivered the drug to the pump (the pump pretty obviously sticks out of the stomach, so it's pretty easy to do). Again, this patient was actually joking around and really cool about everything, which is amazing considering how debilitating the condition was.
The third patient was really cool. This one had undergone the Gamma Knife surgery for a tumor in the auditory canal (just inside the brain). Gamma Knife is non-invasive and pinpoints gamma radiation at a tumor and kills it. The tumor then just stays there and is slowly reabsorbed. I don't quite know how this works, because gamma radiation was the really bad one they told us never to mess with, but apparently they use it for surgery now. The check up showed the tumor was still there, but smaller and everything was ok. The patient had this tiny hearing aid because the tumor was in the auditory canal and messed some stuff up. The hearing aid was bluetooth enabled though. It was like the coolest thing ever. . .I'm kinda looking forward to hearing loss now.
Patient 4 was in for a 1-month check up after a major surgery to repair a herniated disc. Fun-new fact: apparently they also don't immediately do surgeries on herniated discs because most of them are treatable with medicine. Only the really bad ones have to have surgery. This patient actually looked really good and didn't really have much pain, along with a goofy sense of humor that I really appreciated.
Patient 5 came to have some modifications done on a drug regimen. My brain had stopped absorbing much information at this point so I'm not sure what was causing the pain, but it was in the patient's legs. The doctor basically upped the dosages of most of the meds because the patient reported an average pain level of 6, which is a completely subjective pain measurement, but it's really the only way to do it. Patients in that much pain are generally pretty accurate about how they feel. Oh and the scale is from 1-10, with 10 being the worst pain you've ever endured, so 6 is pretty high. The drug regimen is pretty crazy too, I think the patient is taking roughly 20 pills throughout the day. The doctor upped the dosages to try to get the pain down even more (3 or less is optimal) and a surgical alternative is available, but that also seemed like a last resort.
Overall I learned a crazy amount of information in a short two hour period. The doctor even threw a couple of questions my way, which I couldn't answer from the sheer shock of being put on the spot by a neurosurgeon. Talk about surreal. I lucked out too and the neurosurgeon was a really good doctor. He was incredibly warm with all the patients and informed them thoroughly about everything he was doing. I want to shadow other doctors, but I think I might tag along with this one a couple more times and learn more from him. Hopefully he doesn't hate me...
Anyway, now that I'm relatively rested I can write about my neurosurg shadowing, which was really really cool. I got there in the middle of clinic hours, so the doctor was with a patient and I waited in the workroom. I never really thought about how these things worked, but the place looked like a normal doctor's office with multiple exam rooms and one of the rooms was a physician workroom. That's where I was. So the doctor walks in after about 10 minutes and immediately goes to one of the computers to look at a CD of scans. There was a 3rd year rotating student following the doctor as well. I kinda stood there awkwardly for a while, which is what I do well. Once the scans were up and working, the doctor told me to come look at the scans, and I seriously didn't stop thinking or learning for the next two hours.
That patient had a recurrent tumor growth right behind his temple. The tumor was a little larger than a quarter and was right next to his optic nerve. Scans from a couple years before showed that the tumor was not growing. We all went and the doctor talked to the patient about his options. The amazing thing for me was that the patient seemed completely normal. You'd think the tumor would affect something, but not so much. He was also incredibly nice and didn't really seem too phased by the whole thing, he just wanted to know what to do. Apparently, the thing to do in this case is not take out the tumor, but get scans done twice a year and only operate if the tumor begins to grow. Which is crazy talk. The man had a giant tumor in his head. I guess operating put his vision at too much risk, but I think it's amazing that someone can live perfectly fine with a brain tumor.
Then we went straight back to the workroom and prepared for the next patient. This patient had some sort of spinal damage with a fancy name I don't remember. The one symptom was a strong, painful spasticity due to a lack of inhibition of a motor reflex arc (simple and cool nerves, wiki it). So they could give the patient a pill that would increase inhibition and decrease the spasticity, but I guess this has a bunch of side effects. Instead they implanted a pump into the person's torso (above the hip, below the rib on the side) that delivered the drug directly to the damaged site, which only required 1/1000 of the original pill dosage. This patient needed to have the pump refilled with the drug. This was my first experience watching someone have something poked into them, in this case the needle that delivered the drug to the pump (the pump pretty obviously sticks out of the stomach, so it's pretty easy to do). Again, this patient was actually joking around and really cool about everything, which is amazing considering how debilitating the condition was.
The third patient was really cool. This one had undergone the Gamma Knife surgery for a tumor in the auditory canal (just inside the brain). Gamma Knife is non-invasive and pinpoints gamma radiation at a tumor and kills it. The tumor then just stays there and is slowly reabsorbed. I don't quite know how this works, because gamma radiation was the really bad one they told us never to mess with, but apparently they use it for surgery now. The check up showed the tumor was still there, but smaller and everything was ok. The patient had this tiny hearing aid because the tumor was in the auditory canal and messed some stuff up. The hearing aid was bluetooth enabled though. It was like the coolest thing ever. . .I'm kinda looking forward to hearing loss now.
Patient 4 was in for a 1-month check up after a major surgery to repair a herniated disc. Fun-new fact: apparently they also don't immediately do surgeries on herniated discs because most of them are treatable with medicine. Only the really bad ones have to have surgery. This patient actually looked really good and didn't really have much pain, along with a goofy sense of humor that I really appreciated.
Patient 5 came to have some modifications done on a drug regimen. My brain had stopped absorbing much information at this point so I'm not sure what was causing the pain, but it was in the patient's legs. The doctor basically upped the dosages of most of the meds because the patient reported an average pain level of 6, which is a completely subjective pain measurement, but it's really the only way to do it. Patients in that much pain are generally pretty accurate about how they feel. Oh and the scale is from 1-10, with 10 being the worst pain you've ever endured, so 6 is pretty high. The drug regimen is pretty crazy too, I think the patient is taking roughly 20 pills throughout the day. The doctor upped the dosages to try to get the pain down even more (3 or less is optimal) and a surgical alternative is available, but that also seemed like a last resort.
Overall I learned a crazy amount of information in a short two hour period. The doctor even threw a couple of questions my way, which I couldn't answer from the sheer shock of being put on the spot by a neurosurgeon. Talk about surreal. I lucked out too and the neurosurgeon was a really good doctor. He was incredibly warm with all the patients and informed them thoroughly about everything he was doing. I want to shadow other doctors, but I think I might tag along with this one a couple more times and learn more from him. Hopefully he doesn't hate me...
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Stuff's actually happening, shocking!
You all can rest easy now. The work has picked up, and I finally feel like I'm in med school. . .that's still so weird. Anyway, I'm already kinda behind on my studying, but I'm learning a lot about various diseases and ethical issues in medicine. We have one class where patients come in and talk to us about their conditions and experiences with doctors. It's actually pretty amazing listening to these people. All of them so far have chronic diseases like thalamic pain syndrome (more on that later), severe asthma and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (lymph node cancer). It's crazy hearing their stories because their lives completely changed when they got these diseases, and they're so honest and optimistic about it. It's seriously amazing how strong some people are.
Also, I'm more sure than ever that I'm going into neurosurgery, because apparently I totally can. Yeah, you heard that right. It's a hard field to get into because it is super small and everyone kinda knows each other, but I guess this is where going to a private school really helps. Everyone here is incredibly helpful to students. There's a neurosurg interest group that works directly with the neurosurgeons. I'm actually shadowing one tomorrow in the clinic (I can also go into the operating room whenever I want as well, I'm so fucking excited about that). I'll be shadowing a doctor that specializes in treating pain and brain tumors.
I didn't realize, but pain is becoming a huge issue because now we're understanding the biological basis of it more and more. The thalamic pain syndrome patient actually can't have surgery because the thalamus is deep inside the brain. . .and surgeons can get to it, but they have no idea what to cut out. So she can somewhat manage the pain with drugs. Now there's a big debate about painkillers and they might become harder to get, which really sucks for someone like her. Stupid puritanical country.
At the interest group meeting, the faculty adviser gave a short presentation on neurosurgery. Now, I've noticed this a bit, but it became clear after this presentation, doctors like referring to their specialty as something they 'get off on.' Ask a doctor why he likes functional neurosurg versus vascular neurosurg, it's because he didn't 'get off on' the vascular stuff. I think I finally understand this, because neurosurg 'excites' me. I don't exactly get off to. . .er, on it in a literal sense, but it's spec-fucking-tacularly mind-blowing and I like that. And cue Amanda making an incredibly inappropriate yet hilarious masturbatory gesture. . .now. :)
I can see myself doing it for the rest of my life. Even if less than 10% of all neurosurgeons in the country are female. Like in California, out of about 550 neurosurgeons, 40 are female. 40. That's kinda depressing. But the one female neurosurgeon at Northwestern is out on maternity leave, so apparently I don't need to be alone and super macho for the rest of my life. That's a good thing, because I don't think I do macho very well. . .I should stop there.
Anyway, this can all change tomorrow at clinic, but be sure that I'll write about the experience even if you all find this incredibly boring. I'm just that kind of blogger.
Also, I'm more sure than ever that I'm going into neurosurgery, because apparently I totally can. Yeah, you heard that right. It's a hard field to get into because it is super small and everyone kinda knows each other, but I guess this is where going to a private school really helps. Everyone here is incredibly helpful to students. There's a neurosurg interest group that works directly with the neurosurgeons. I'm actually shadowing one tomorrow in the clinic (I can also go into the operating room whenever I want as well, I'm so fucking excited about that). I'll be shadowing a doctor that specializes in treating pain and brain tumors.
I didn't realize, but pain is becoming a huge issue because now we're understanding the biological basis of it more and more. The thalamic pain syndrome patient actually can't have surgery because the thalamus is deep inside the brain. . .and surgeons can get to it, but they have no idea what to cut out. So she can somewhat manage the pain with drugs. Now there's a big debate about painkillers and they might become harder to get, which really sucks for someone like her. Stupid puritanical country.
At the interest group meeting, the faculty adviser gave a short presentation on neurosurgery. Now, I've noticed this a bit, but it became clear after this presentation, doctors like referring to their specialty as something they 'get off on.' Ask a doctor why he likes functional neurosurg versus vascular neurosurg, it's because he didn't 'get off on' the vascular stuff. I think I finally understand this, because neurosurg 'excites' me. I don't exactly get off to. . .er, on it in a literal sense, but it's spec-fucking-tacularly mind-blowing and I like that. And cue Amanda making an incredibly inappropriate yet hilarious masturbatory gesture. . .now. :)
I can see myself doing it for the rest of my life. Even if less than 10% of all neurosurgeons in the country are female. Like in California, out of about 550 neurosurgeons, 40 are female. 40. That's kinda depressing. But the one female neurosurgeon at Northwestern is out on maternity leave, so apparently I don't need to be alone and super macho for the rest of my life. That's a good thing, because I don't think I do macho very well. . .I should stop there.
Anyway, this can all change tomorrow at clinic, but be sure that I'll write about the experience even if you all find this incredibly boring. I'm just that kind of blogger.
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